Metals & Markets Glossary

The "K" (karat) tells you how much of a piece is pure gold, out of 24 parts. 24K is 99.9% pure and too soft for everyday jewellery, so 22K (91.6% gold, BIS-hallmarked) is the Indian retail standard, 18K (75%) is common for diamond-studded pieces, and 14K (58.3%) is more durable but less pure. All four are priced directly off the 24K rate on our Jewellery Calculator — 22K = 24K rate × 22/24, and so on.

A BIS (Bureau of Indian Standards) hallmark is a government-certified stamp confirming a gold item's actual purity matches what the jeweller claims — it's the legal proof, not just a marketing label. Since June 2021, hallmarking is mandatory for gold jewellery sold in India above a certain purity threshold, and since April 2023 every piece must carry a 6-digit alphanumeric HUID (Hallmark Unique Identification) that you can verify against the retailer's invoice on the BIS CARE app.

The labour/craftsmanship fee a jeweller adds on top of the raw metal cost — typically 8–15% of the metal value for plain gold jewellery (machine-made chains can run as low as 3–6%, intricate hand-finished pieces 20%+), charged either as a percentage or a flat per-gram rate (commonly ₹200–₹800/gram in Indian retail). Unlike the metal price itself, making charges are set by each jeweller individually and are often negotiable. Our Jewellery Calculator lets you toggle between both billing methods.

India charges 3% GST on the combined value of gold/silver metal cost plus making charges — this is specific to precious-metal jewellery, not the general GST rate applied to other goods. Worked example: 10g of 22K gold at ₹7,000/gram = ₹70,000, plus 10% making charges (₹7,000) = ₹77,000 taxable value, plus 3% GST (₹2,310) = ₹79,310 final bill. It only applies within India; our calculators automatically hide it for every other country.

"999" fine silver is 99.9% pure — the reference rate we quote for silver. "925" sterling silver is 92.5% pure, alloyed with other metals (usually copper) for extra strength, and is the standard for silver jewellery and cutlery. "800" silver is a lower-purity grade used in some older or regional pieces.

Two different units that sound identical: karat (with a K) measures gold purity out of 24 parts, while carat (with a C) measures the physical weight of a gemstone (1 carat = 0.2 grams). A "2-carat, 18-karat" ring describes the diamond's weight and the gold's purity separately.

A traditional South Asian unit equal to 11.664 grams, still widely used for quoting gold and silver prices across India, Nepal and Pakistan, especially in wholesale bullion markets. Every price page on this site includes a "1 Tola" conversion alongside the gram rate.

The standard international unit for precious metals — equal to 31.1035 grams, about 10% heavier than a regular ("avoirdupois") ounce (28.35g). Global benchmarks like the LBMA Gold Price and COMEX futures are quoted per troy ounce (e.g. "gold at $2,650/oz" in financial news); we convert this to per-gram INR for every metal we track, so you never have to do the 31.1035 division yourself.

In Indian gold retail, a "sovereign" (or "pavan") commonly refers to an 8-gram unit of gold, distinct from the historical British gold sovereign coin. It's a popular purchase size in South India and is offered as a weight option on our Jewellery Calculator.

Gold, silver, platinum and uranium are quoted per gram because they trade in small, high-value quantities. Industrial metals like copper, aluminium, zinc and lead are quoted per kilogram because they're bought and priced in bulk — showing copper "per gram" would just make the number look artificially tiny. Every price on this site is stored per gram internally and only converted to per-kg for display.

India's dominant commodity futures exchange, headquartered in Mumbai — the domestic reference point for gold, silver and several industrial metals traded within India. Trading runs roughly 9:00am–11:30/11:55pm IST on non-holiday weekdays, with gold and silver contracts quoted in INR per 10g and per kg respectively. See the full MCX market profile.

The primary US exchange (part of CME Group) for gold, silver and copper futures, trading in near-continuous sessions (Sunday–Friday, with a daily settlement window). COMEX settlement prices are one of the most-watched global reference points for precious metals and are quoted in USD per troy ounce (per pound for copper). See the full COMEX market profile.

A twice-daily benchmark price set in London by the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) via an electronic auction — one at 10:30am and one at 3:00pm London time — the reference most of the world's gold trade, from central banks to jewellers, is priced against. See the full LBMA market profile.

The world's primary market for industrial/base metals — aluminium, copper, zinc, lead, nickel and tin — where prices are still partly set via open-outcry trading on a physical trading floor ("The Ring") alongside electronic trading, and contracts settle against specific forward "prompt dates" rather than a single spot date. See the full LME market profile.

On our country and continent pages, "Reference Market" is an informational link to the nearest tracked exchange for that country — it is not a claim that we source prices directly from it. All prices on this site come from one live data feed (metalpriceapi.com), converted into each country's currency; the reference market is context for understanding how that country's traders typically watch the metal market.

The spot price is the current price for immediate delivery — what every price on this site reflects. A futures price is an agreed price for delivery at a set date in the future (traded on exchanges like MCX/COMEX), which can differ from spot based on interest rates, storage costs and market expectations.

The percentage difference between today's price and the previous day's price for the same metal/city/country. A positive % (shown in green with ▲) means the price rose; negative (red, ▼) means it fell. This is the single number most of our cards, tables and alerts are built around.

A bull market describes a sustained period of rising prices and investor optimism; a bear market describes a sustained decline, commonly defined as a 20%+ drop from a recent peak. These terms describe a trend over weeks or months, not a single day's move — check our Gold Price page's 10-day/1-year charts to see actual multi-week trends rather than reading one day's change as a "market".

Precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, palladium, rhodium) are valued for rarity and low reactivity. Base metals (copper, aluminium, zinc, lead, tin, nickel, iron) are industrial workhorses, priced in bulk. Rare earth / minor metals (neodymium, gallium, indium, tellurium) are used in small quantities in electronics and green-energy technology, and trade on much thinner, less liquid markets.

An Exchange-Traded Fund that holds physical gold (or gold-backed assets) and trades on a stock exchange like a share (e.g. Nippon India ETF Gold BeES, HDFC Gold ETF) — a way to gain price exposure to gold without storing physical metal, buyable in units worth roughly 1/100th gram of gold each. Returns broadly track the spot gold price shown on this site, minus a small annual fund expense ratio (typically 0.4–0.8%).

A government-issued bond denominated in grams of gold, sold by the Reserve Bank of India on behalf of the Government of India in periodic tranches. It tracks the gold price, has an 8-year tenure with early exit allowed from year 5, and pays a fixed 2.5% annual interest on top — with no making charges or GST and no capital-gains tax if held to maturity, making it one of the few ways to hold "paper gold" investment purposes without the making-charge/GST drag of physical jewellery.

See "Why Some Metals Show /g and Others /kg" above — the short version: precious/high-value metals display per gram, bulk industrial metals display per kilogram, and the underlying database always stores the per-gram INR value regardless of display unit.